Texas Cop Hires 2 Men to Kill Estranged Wife “Disgusted” by His Sexual Desires

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Texas Cop Hires 2 Men to Kill Estranged Wife “Disgusted” by His ******* Desires

A 7-year-old boy bravely took the stand after someone murdered his mother, a moment Kelly Siegler won’t soon forget.

In Season 2, Episode 3 of

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, the prosecutor and investigators from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office in Texas recalled the 1994 ********* of

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, a “vivacious” mother of three gunned down in the garage of her Humble-area home. According to Siegler, the case went through “a whole bunch of pretty sketchy, shady characters” until the child’s testimony helped prove who was behind the shocking crime.

The shooting of Farah Fratta

On November 9, 1994 at 7:38 p.m., neighbor Laura Hoelscher nursed her infant son on the living room couch when she witnessed 34-year-old Farah Fratta reverse her car into her home garage across the street. Hoelscher told producers she heard “a pop” before seeing Mrs. Fratta fall to the ground, followed by “another pop,” and initially believed it to be Fratta’s young sons horsing around.

But when Farah Fratta failed to get up, Hoelscher phoned 911 and reported that a ****** male in ****** clothes seemed to have been lying in wait. Still on the phone with dispatchers, Hoelscher watched the garage lights go off before the shooter went behind a tree, followed by a second person pulling up in a vehicle to pick the gunman up.

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“It was a silver car, I believe, with one burned-out headlight,” the neighbor told 911 operators. “The suspect just took off.”

When Hoelscher’s husband went to the scene, Farah Fratta was barely clinging to life after sustaining two gunshot wounds to the head.

Members of law enforcement, such as crime scene investigator Dep. J.D. “Dave” Ferrell and Sgt. Harry Fikaris, would be correct in assuming the victim wouldn’t make it through the night, despite being Life Flighted to an area hospital.

Farah Fratta’s purse and other items left at the crime scene indicated it wasn’t a robbery.

Detectives look into Farah Fratta’s husband, Bob Fratta

Farah Fratta and Robert Alan Fratta, featured on Prosecuting Evil Episode 203, hold their newborn.

Less than an hour after the shooting, before Farah Fratta passed in the night, her husband, Robert “Bob” Fratta, showed up with the couple’s three children: Bradley, 7, Daniel, 6, and Amber, 4. The eldest, who took his maternal parents’ surname and now goes by Bradley Baquer, told Prosecuting Evil it was a “chaotic scene.”

Right away, investigators pointed their attention to the husband.

“At the crime scene, while I’m talking to Robert, he was not asking questions that you would think someone would be asking when they find out that his wife and [the] mother of his children have just been shot,” said Fikaris. “He’s focusing on telling the story about his alibi.”

But, Bob Fratta had a strong alibi: He was at church when the shooting occurred, where the two younger children stayed in the nursery, and the eldest attended catechism class.

Siegler, however, wondered if Bob Fratta’s job experience as a police officer and firefighter out of Missouri City, Texas — about 20 miles southwest of Houston — gave the husband and bodybuilder an edge during his 14-hour interrogation.

“When one cop is interviewing another cop, they’re aware that the person they’re talking to knows all the rules,” Siegler said. “They know the game, they know the law, they know how to work all that to their advantage more than the typical suspect.”

During the video-recorded interview, published by Prosecuting Evil, Bob Fratta said he couldn’t think of anyone who hated his wife. However, he suggested they “check her lifestyle,” citing her desire to attend nightclubs and recent breast augmentation.

Detectives grew even more suspicious in the ensuing days, given Bob Fratta’s flirtatious and carefree demeanor with media outlets.

Farah and Bob Fratta’s ongoing divorce

Authorities discovered Farah and Bob Fratta were embroiled in a contentious divorce and child custody battle. According to the victim’s coworker and friend, Kitty Sneed, the U.K.-born Farah Fratta worked as a ticket agent for American Airlines when she first met Bob, a ticket agent at the time, and the pair just “hit it off.”

“He could charm the pants off anybody,” said Sneed.

After several years of marriage and three children, things between husband and wife began to unravel. Sneed said Bob Fratta “put up a good front” but was “very selfish,” often being emotionally abusive by targeting Farah Fratta’s self-image. While Farah Fratta was a more timid woman, Bob Fratta “latched onto her insecurities and made them worse.”

This, according to Sneed, was why Farah Fratta had cosmetic surgery in the first place.

Farah Fratta wanted out and sought a divorce, custody, and child support. But, what authorities proffered as another motive, Farah Fratta made “******, ugly” statements about their sex life during a deposition in divorce proceedings — details the husband might not have wanted to be made public, according to Siegler. Sgt. Fikaris noted the suspect’s “alternate lifestyle” not only included frequent visits to topless strip clubs but also “very kinky sex,” the kind that reportedly comprised Bob Fratta being defecated on.

“That kind of sex is what he really liked, and he wanted her to do that, and she had told other people that she was disgusted by it and couldn’t do it anymore,” said Siegler. “She was ready for that part of her life to be over with.”

Still, Bob Fratta denied having a role in his estranged wife’s *********. In fact, by his own admission hours after the *******, Bob Fratta said that having Farah Fratta dead would have meant he potentially missed out on $600 to $700 a week she’d have to pay in child support.

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Investigators sift through Bob Fratta’s alibi

Harris County officials gleaned from several eyewitnesses that Bob Fratta, before his wife’s death, frequently complained about the divorce to others at the local gym. The embattled husband told many that he feared losing everything and having to fork over child support.

“That’s when we found out that he was asking people if they knew anybody that would kill her for him,” Fikaris told Prosecuting Evil.

Bob Fratta asked “a lot of people” about hiring someone to kill his wife, according to Siegler, but no one took him seriously.

Meanwhile, detectives dug deeper into his alibi and found witnesses who noted his “strange” behavior, such as using the church phone to make and receive a number of phone calls.

His then-7-year-old son, Bradley Baquer, witnessed this out-of-the-ordinary behavior, as well as phone calls Bob Fratta later made when they sat at a restaurant.

“While eating there, two times, at least to my knowledge, [he] left us sitting in the booth and went to a pay phone to make phone calls,” Baquer told Prosecuting Evil.

Authorities sifted through phone records, learning the back-and-forth calls linked to a phone and pager belonging to a woman named Mary *****.

***** initially refused to cooperate with law enforcement but opened up upon the promise of immunity.

Were others involved in Farah Fratta’s *******?

***** stated Bob Fratta had approached her live-in boyfriend, Joseph Prystash, at the gym, offering him $2,000 and a Jeep to kill his wife. Prystash then acted as the middleman, enlisting another, Howard Guidry, to carry out the shooting.

Guidry’s appearance and Prystash’s vehicle matched the statements of Farah Fratta’s neighbor across the street.

“Mary ***** knew what was about to go down, yet she didn’t call one person and warn them,” said Siegler. “Not Farah, not the police, not anybody. She let it happen.”

***** was home on the night of the shooting, when Prystash returned from helping kill Farah Fratta. For the girlfriend’s own insurance, she secretly wrote down the .38 Smith & Wesson revolver’s serial number, which in March 1995, was linked to a separate bank robbery for which Guidry had just been arrested.

The ******* weapon was registered to none other than Bob Fratta.

Soon, Prystash confessed to being the getaway driver, and Guidry admitted to pulling the trigger, all on behalf of Bob Fratta. Since Texas law states *******-for-hire doesn’t differentiate between the roles of mastermind, middleman, and executioner, all three were charged with capital *******.

The 1996 trial of Bob Fratta

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Robert Alan Fratta, featured in Prosecuting Evil Episode 203, smiles in a blue tank top.

Bob Fratta was the first to be tried, beginning on April 9, 1996. Siegler prosecuted the case and painted him as a “******* deviant” who didn’t want others knowing about the ******* proclivities Farah Fratta confessed to in her deposition. It was, the prosecution submitted, the straw that broke the camel’s back amid their heated divorce and child custody battle.

“That was when he decided he had to take care of Farah,” said Siegler.  

Against the advice of her boss, Siegler opted to have the couple’s eldest take the stand. It was an emotional time for Siegler, who could remember Baquer not understanding the impact of his statements and even waving to his father from the stand.

“The prosecutor part of me was coldly thinking, ‘Let’s focus here,’” Siegler remembered. “The mother part of me wanted to cry and just yank him off and take him out.”

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But it was the boy’s remarkable testimony that tied Bob Fratta to the phone calls at the church and diner around the time someone fatally shot Farah Fratta. The phone, belonging to Mary *****, was in Prystash and Guidry’s possession, according to Siegler.

In Prosecuting Evil, Siegler and Baquer had an emotional reunion, 28 years after the eldest son took the stand.

“I had no idea why I was answering these questions for you,” Baquer told Siegler. “I had no idea my dad was the one being charged, you know?”

Still, Baquer understood his testimony was “needed” to attain closure for his mother.

Mary *****, who was granted immunity in exchange for her cooperation, also took the stand, testifying that she was there when Prystash dressed in ****** and left their home to pick up Guidry and carry out the *******.

“There’s one person that I will never, ever forgive, and that’s Mary *****,” Baquer told Siegler. “I know that she knew what was going to happen and she didn’t do a damn thing.”

Bob Fratta is sentenced to death

On April 17, 1996, 17 months after Farah Fratta’s *******, a jury found Bob Fratta guilty of capital *******. It wasn’t until after the verdict was reached that Farah Fratta’s parents, Lex and Betty Baquer, sat the children down and explained what exactly happened.

“I couldn’t process [that] my father had someone kill my mother,” Baquer told Prosecuting Evil. “I still looked at my father like he’s my father, and I’m still trying to understand why, or if this is even real.”

One month later, during the penalty phase of trial, Bob Fratta was sentenced to death.

Baquer said he grew up angry at his father, but at 18, he and his brother visited Bob Fratta on death row. He hoped the prisoner would perhaps confess to the crime or express remorse. He did neither.

“He just wanted to constantly say he was innocent,” Baquer continued to Siegler. “It was honestly him trying to convince us that he’s behind bars for no reason.”

Following Bob Fratta’s sentencing, Prystash and Guidry stood trial, and both were also found guilty of capital ******* and sentenced to death. They are still awaiting execution on death row, according to the

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.

Bob Fratta was executed by lethal injection on January 10, 2003, an event Bradley Baquer attended. When asked if he had any last words, the convicted man only replied, “No.”

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#Texas #Cop #Hires #Men #Kill #Estranged #Wife #Disgusted #******* #Desires

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